MERLOT review
A free OER platform with strong discovery, authoring, review, and LMS integration.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
MERLOT is a free, web-based community and repository for discovering, contributing, evaluating, organizing, and creating online teaching and learning materials. It primarily serves higher education educators, learners, researchers, and institutions. Its catalog combines metadata and links to online resources with member submissions, bookmark collections, peer review, community annotation, and Content Builder tools for creating hosted educational websites. Public publishing with Creative Commons licensing gives contributors a defined path from creation to sharing.
Discovery is one of MERLOT’s clearest strengths. Advanced search can narrow resources by discipline, format, audience, mobile availability, and license, including open-license filtering. Discipline editorial boards manage peer review, adding an evaluation workflow to the catalog. The platform also supports broad reuse through Common Cartridge export for Content Builder sites and download formats that include PDF, Zip, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, RTF, TXT, CSV, SAV, SCORM, websites, audio, video, and images. Web services APIs cover search, contribution, and LMS integration, while direct integrations are available for Blackboard, Canvas, Desire2Learn, and Moodle.
MERLOT’s main tradeoff is the distinction between cataloging and hosting. Many discoverable materials remain on external sites, while Content Builder sites are hosted by MERLOT. That model gives the platform broad reach across existing educational resources, but it may be less suitable for organizations seeking one centrally hosted repository for every asset. Institutions and educators should pick MERLOT when license-aware discovery, community review, authoring, export, and LMS connectivity matter. Those needing a fully self-contained content host or a broader learning management system should choose a platform designed for that purpose instead.
MERLOT pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Advanced search includes discipline, format, audience, mobile, and license filters
- Content Builder supports hosted website creation and public publishing
- APIs, Common Cartridge, and four LMS integrations support reuse
- Where it doesn't
- Many discoverable resources are linked externally rather than hosted
- The platform is web-based, with no listed native desktop or mobile apps
- Content Builder publishing is narrower than a full learning management system
MERLOT fact sheet, pricing and score →
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